I'm a prostitute

This blog could really be called "Confessions of a Prostitute."

That’s right, I’m confessing right here and now, I’m a prostitute.

No, I’m not standing on street corners agreeing to payment for sex. However, I do whore myself out quite a lot.

You probably do too.

In Sunday school yesterday, we heard the story of Gomer and Hosea. If you’re not familiar with it, you can find it in the first two chapters of Hosea in the Old Testament.

God called Hosea to marry a prostitute, or an adulterous woman in some translations, who would have illegitimate children. Gomer had one child by Hosea and also children that were not his. She eventually left him and started sleeping around and was sold into slavery by a lover.

God still told Hosea to go buy her back and love her like a cherished wife.

Sounds wrong, doesn’t it?

We might want to identify with Hosea - we’ve been used and abused and had to put up with a lot of unfair stuff in our lives.

However, we can identify with Gomer just as much, if not more.

You see, God asked Hosea to do all this to make a living example of what Israel was doing to God. God’s people, which now includes all believers, were prostitutes - selling themselves for earthly pleasures. They were whoring themselves out to things that felt good at the moment instead of clinging to their betrothed love, God.

I think I put myself on quite the pedestal if I think I’m like Hosea. Really, I’m just sleeping around with all the things of this world, trying to have some fun.

Thank goodness we have a loving husband, a God, that takes us back time after time. He doesn’t just take us back - calling us names, making us feel guilty about our actions - he loves us with an unconditional love. He forgives us for being adulterers.

Even better than Hosea, he does it without anyone making him.